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chapter twenty - six
graveyard whistling
About two days after we got back from the hot springs resort, a package was dropped off at Tetsu's front door, postmarked from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The box was heavy, and had no doubt cost my mother a fortune to send overseas.
"What's in the box?" Tetsu raised an eyebrow as I carried it into the kitchen, his copy of Demon Slayer suddenly much less interesting than it had been ten minutes ago, when we were both perched on the suede couch with our books. Well, mine was a book, his was basically a comic.
"Care package from my mom." I said, slicing into the packing tape with a pair of kitchen scissors. "All the goodies she doesn't want to cart back to Santa Fe."
"I wanna see." Tetsu whined, appearing as if from nowhere at my side as I reached into the box. On the top was a canvas tote bag filled with clothes, nothing super important but I guess mom figured it was time to clear my stuff out. There was a stack of books, some that I'd had since high school *cough* my sixteen-book Pretty Little Liars collection *cough*, others that I'd bought more recently.
A second stack was all detective novels that used to belong to my dad. Picking up a copy of Jeffery Deaver's 'The Bone Collector', I thumbed through it, taking in the notes scrawled in his handwriting. I'd often read a book first, because we both liked the same detective stories. I simply found it easier to read without his notations, but now I found them comforting.
"What's this?" Tetsu hummed, reaching for a stack of DVD's. Asian DVD players worked differently, but I knew my laptop would still play these.
I grinned. "Mila Jovovich. Resident Evil. It's based on a Japanese video game, actually."
"Dan and I have played it, actually. Other than get into fights, playing video games was all we used to do in high school. I had to repeat my senior year twice!"
"We'll watch it later, on my laptop." I smiled. "I used to love these movies growing up."
Also inside the box, I found a cache of American chocolate bars: KitKat, Hersheys and Twix, all full sized. My mother was spoiling me rotten. Grinning, I opened the jumbo KitKat bar and broke off a stick, passing another to Tetsu with a smile and a simple explanation to what it was.
Reaching into the box again, I grinned wider- if that was even possible- and pulled out my favourite desk ornament: the Guy Fieri bobblehead. Flicking the master chef and TV icons head, I laughed, inviting a strange look from Tetsu.
"What the hell is that?"
"A Guy Fieri bobblehead." I answered innocently, perching it on the palm of my hand
"Who?"
My jaw dropped. "You don't know who Guy Fieri is?"
